Is Your Cat Normal?

Spotted on the New York Times website:

Is Your Cat Normal?

The comments section is as entertaining as the article itself!

Among our brood, we have an utterly incorrigible cord chewer who does not fear the vacuum cleaner; a talker who occasionally gets "lost" at the other end of the apartment or "stuck" at the top of the cat tree; and a little black-furred neurotic who was born and raised in our home yet is still terrified of us ... sometimes, when he's not demanding attention.

Yep. All perfectly normal.

Cats!

I can finally chime in! Isis has started talking in the past couple weeks. Conversationally to me in the morning, after S. leaves. Loudly, wanting company, at 3 am. She even let C. hold her last night. Still a little skittish, at times, but it's helped she's eating better - bugging her at certain times is verboten, knowing she was grabbed often in her previous home.

Sounds like she's settling in nicely!

Among our crew, Mina is not much of a talker, except when something's happening that she doesn't like -- for example, getting her claws clipped or being examined by the vet. Then, she breaks out language far more suited to The Sopranos than the temple.

The two JBTs are much more vocal -- to the point of being annoying, sometimes, when they want attention. They have a pretty wide vocabulary, as well. Kyouju in particular keeps expanding his repertoire.

Oh, the funniest thing? When she's romping, when it's not a full-out dash, she *bounces*. Think Pepe LePew, believe it or not, except with her tail held at a funny angle.

Oh, that's just too precious!! I wish I could see it.

LOL, I wish I could see video on that.

Cadfael's the one with the best vocabulary of the two around here. Everything from a "bruuu-uuu-uuu" bouncy sound when he's running and talking at the same time, to a raised voice long "mmmnnnnOOOOWwwww" when you're not listening to his demands.

Oh, and he likes to lick metal. Everything from the boat chrome, to the porch rails... and sometimes non-metal objects. If you see a puddle of liquid under the porch rails and it hasn't rained... cadfael's been slobbering on the metal.

Persia's language is more croaky. Like she's been lost in the desert for a month, and starved to boot. Talks mainly when she wants something, the rest of the time she's all quiet hunter. Very friendly if you're not moving, but try walking around her, eating or not, and she acts like you're about to punt her across the room. We can only attribute that to being stray at very young, since the only awful things we do to her is to catch her for claw trimming, flea stuff... the usual maintenance.

How dare you.

We had to take our crew to the vet's this past Saturday. Decided to just take all three at the same time for checkups, etc. The most diffucult part was catching Eddie ... took longer to get him than it did for the other two combined, times three or four ...

And it turns out he's the one who needs further attention, namely, a tooth cleaning.